Earl Aagaard’s opinions about everything that interests him. Og also enjoys gardening, travel, reading, woodbutchery, and lots of other stuff.
Powered by ExpressionEngine
Living in Tennessee, I simply put up a bird-feeder and flocks of birds appeared, regardless of the season. Here in Oregon, it hasn’t been so easy.
.
In fairness, my backyard is “sterile”.....it’s got grass, and that’s it. There’s no place for a bird to feel secure, and safety trumps bird-seed unless the bird is quite literally starving to death.
.
So…...I hung my bird-feeders from the eaves, and then raided a humongous brush-pile on the way to Fred Meyer, and attached the branches to the rain-gutters in order to provide perching places right near the feeders. Nothing…....
.
The branches were just bare ones, and I could see a Juniper tree in the yard across the alley - with birdies in it!! So, I pruned Laura’s Juniper tree and attached the resulting branches to the rain-gutters on the garage, about five feet from the feeders. Nothing….....
.
I was now feeling distinctly inept….and Sophia was asking me why the birds weren’t coming to eat! That did it. I had to solve this problem or lose all credibility in the eyes of my granddaughter. What to do…......?
.
I must have had mine last week—Gail and Laura headed downtown to do some shopping, and to spruce up Leslie’s new office. Sophia came over for her regular “date” from 1:00 to 5:00 at Grandmama and Papa’s house. She and I did some imaginative play in the house….
.
.
.
Then we went outside for a while….
.
.
2009 has been a year of incredible changes for the Earl & Gail Aagaard household. Here is how we spent the year:
.
In an EARLIER POST, I explained how we like to buy well-made things and keep them a long (long) time, mentioning that we’d had only three cars in our 40 years of marriage. What I didn’t say was that we were in the process of buying our fourth car, one that we hope will last us until we quit driving altogether. It was a fun process, actually…..especially since, once she saw and sat in the 2010 model of the vehicle I’d decided was the best one for us, Gail loved it! We picked up the car on Sunday, but it was only this morning that we took the “official photograph”:
.
.
.
.
In 1965, this is what Gail and I looked like, at the ALBION FIELD STATION during our freshman year:
.
.
.
.
A lot has changed since then…..but not everything!
Well, we’re safely in Bend after a five-day trip across the United States of America. I want to do it slowly one of these days, but even driving an average of 10 hours/day allowed us to sense the wonderfulness of our country—the size, the variety, the wealth, the quality of the highway system, and the fabulous American people…...get out and experience the United States that we share, and I think you’ll agree that we live in the best country in the world!
Here’s what we saw as we approached Bend…...
.
.
After five years at 3647 Bentwood Cove Drive:
.
.
.
.
We’ll be moving to Oregon—next week, in fact. Van loads on Tuesday (currently predicted to be sunny - YAY!), we clean the house and sign the papers on Wednesday, and then we drive away on Thursday morning.
.